[asia-apec 1293] Press Release from Women and Pesticide Workshop, 23-27 August 1999, Penang

[PAN Asia Pacific]

                        Press Release
                      September 3, 1999 
        Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific
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                Women Unite to Resist the Pesticide Onslaught 

International Gathering Condemns Worsening Pesticide Impacts on
Women and Children 


"Globalization, and increasing commercialization of agriculture, is
promoting intensive use of hazardous pesticides.  This has
intensified the suffering of women in rural agriculture and the
plantation sector" stated Sarojeni V. Rengam, Executive Director of
PAN Asia and the Pacific at the Press Conference held in
conjunction of the Regional Workshop on Women and Pesticides in
Penang recently.  "The privatization of health care services as
promoted by the globalization process, has worsened the situation
by alienating poorer, more vulnerable sectors of the population -
namely women and children in rural communities, and in the
plantations" she continued. 

The workshop, entitled "Women Protecting Health and the
Environment", was organized by PAN Asia and the Pacific and hosted
40 representatives from over 15 countries in the region, with
resource people from as far a field as the U.S.  The workshop was
organised to share experiences and information on "national
realities" of pesticides use in various countries; to share
initiatives in community organizing and pesticide monitoring;
promotion of alternatives to pesticides and sustainable
agriculture; campaigning on problems with pesticides and
problematic pesticides; and to develop strategies to resist the
onslaught on women's health. 

Participants agreed that globalization actually works against
women's health and economic conditions.  "In India there is lack of
healthcare for women and children in the rural areas. 
Privatization will make things worse!" stressed Burnad Fatima, of
the Tamil Nadu Women's Forum, who has been working among the rural
poor and Dalits (the Schedule Caste), women and children for the
past 20 years.   "Women working in agriculture are exposed to
pesticides and are suffering all kinds of problems.  TNC shave
entered villages and targeted women as users of their products. 
Additionally, with modernization, women have been thrown out
employment.  Without a way to feed themselves or their families,
nutrition has been affected. In many cases, women put themselves
last when it comes to food, aggravating malnutrition and related
illnesses," added Fatima. 

With large scale commercial farming, the Workshop noted that more
and more women were becoming farm and plantation workers.  Trade
liberalisation was being used to push hazardous pesticides and
chemicals into the Asian countries.  As it was mainly women who
handled pesticides in farms and plantations (as also in small-scale
farming), their health suffered.  Delegates from several countries,
including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the
Philippines reported the increasing exposure of women and children
to pesticides and, consequently, the increasing incidence of
disease. 

What Women Suffer 

Women who were exposed to pesticides suffered a range of health
problems - acute effects of skin and eye, and breathing problems,
sexual and reproductive problems including miscarriages and still
births, and chronic effects like cancers.  Women are working with
highly toxic pesticides that can cause severe poisoning and death. 
Many of the pesticides they are heavily exposed to are known to
damage the brain and nervous system, or cause cancer, or birth
defects. 

Sharing her own experiences as a farmer having once used pesticides,
Carmen Buena, Chairperson of the Federation of Peasant Women in the
Philippines (AMIHAN), stressed that, "Most of these pesticides are
banned or severely restricted in other countries.  AMIHAN is calling
for a stop to pesticides use especially since many farmer cannot
afford the medical care of pesticide related health problems."

Participants shared how many of the women do not even know the names
or hazards of the pesticides they are mixing and applying. 
Jayamarie, Tenaganita's Field Officer with its Women and
Plantations Programme, explained, "Women receive no education or
training in how to use them properly or how to protect themselves
and their children.  They have no water to wash off the pesticides
or to drink. Women plantation workers in Malaysia suffer from
watery eyes, nausea, nose bleeds, discoloured fingernails and many
other complaints due to paraquart use.  Due to the weight of the
spray tanks many women have suffered prolapsed wombs, and
miscarriages!" 

The Failure of the Health System

To make matters worse participants noted that there is a woeful lack
of medical facilities for these women and their communities, and
public healthcare facilities were also being withdrawn or curtailed
following liberalisation.  "The situation is no different in
Pakistan,"  noted Nasira Habib of KHOJ Research and Education. 
"Women are exposed due to the great grange of work they do but
there are no health care facilities, including first aid! Women's
low self-esteem and social conditioning mean that they do not see
their health problems as important enough to seek medical help,
poverty being a major factor in decision making as well. Women have
not learnt to give importance to themselves, and visit doctors only
when they are bedridden. Women also faced problems of going to
hospitals that were often many miles away from their villages. 
Women have to travel on very bumpy roads even when pregnant - some
have been known to suffer miscarriages on route!" 

Women faced problems due to the hostile, aggressive and dismissive
attitudes they faced at clinics and government hospitals.  The
predominantly male hospital assistants and doctors were for the
most part untrained, insensitive and disinterested in recognizing
pesticide-related ailments.  "Another problem women face is that
with majority of males working in hospitals, women find it very
difficult to discuss problems related to their reproductive systems
and genitals.  Doctors do not relate symptoms to pesticides and so
workers are sent back to the plantations despite the pains,
headaches and other ailments they suffer," elaborated Jayamarie of
the situation in Malaysia that unfortunately echoed the situation
in many countries. 

Overall however, many medical doctors were not aware of the problems
caused by pesticides.  They are not trained, and hence are unable to
diagnose these problems.  Nor are these health problems on the
agendas of the trade unions or the governments.  Trade
liberalisation was affecting women's health condition as well as
their economic conditions through loss of jobs, loss of land,
economic disempowerment, etc.  The workshop stressed that it was
necessary therefore for women workers to play a greater role in the
unions and resist the erosion of their health and economic
conditions. 

Particular Problems

Dr. Marion Moses of the San Francisco based Pesticides Education
Centre, who has many years experience investigating
pesticide-related health problems in farm workers in the U.S., was
shocked at the severity and extent of the problems revealed by the
women from the Asian countries represented at the workshop. 
"Although I knew that pesticide exposure was a problem for poor
women working on farms and plantations I was shocked at the
severity and extent of the problems as revealed by the women from
the Asian countries represented at this workshop," she stated. "The
health problems being documented and suspected to be due to
pesticides are because women are the majority of the workers who
apply pesticides. They also mix them and pour them into the spray
containers, which is an even more serious health risk since they
are handling the concentrated products.  Women who are pregnant, or
nursing, or who have asthma or other diseases are often forced to
work with these toxic chemicals at the threat of losing their jobs"
she noted. 

Speaking of the remedies often put forward by pesticide industry,
she was adamant that, "The answer is not to provide protective
clothing.  Even if they were provided full protective equipment and
clothing appropriate for pesticides they are working with  -- they
would be at risk of heat stress and even death from heat stroke.
This is especially since they do not have enough water, or
sometimes not any water, to drink.  These women are working with
pesticides that are so dangerous they cannot be used safety under
any conditions of agricultural practice".  "I am outraged that many
of the pesticides being aggressively and deceptively marketed and
promoted in Asian countries are from my own country where the
conditions and constrains for their use are much more stringent",
she concluded. 

Quite a number of these pesticides are also endocrine disrupters,
mimicking the natural hormones in the body, they could disrupt the
endocrine systems, and particularly affect the development of the
child in the womb.  Cases of physical and functional defects among
children born to such pesticide-exposed women have been reported
from around the world, according to Dr Michael Smolen, a scientist
with the World Wildlife Fund, U.S. "These chemicals are
particularly damaging during the embryonic, foetal, and early
postnatal periods because they resemble or interfere with the
hormones, neurotransmitters, growth factors and other signalling
substances that normally control the development or alter
performance.  The effects are in many cases irreversible and often
expressed as changes in function rather than as obvious birth
defects or clinical diseases" elaborated Dr. Smolen during the
workshop.  For him, it was indeed unfortunate that women worked so
closely with pesticides, especially during pregnancies because,
"exposure can effect the unborn, causing lowered levels among
children, effecting the future fertility of babies, structural
changes in babies and behaviour."  Summing up the urgency of the
issue, he stated, "Can we give up future generations for a crop?
Every baby has right chemical-free!" Consumer organizations in
Korea and Japan, who were present at the workshop, were carrying
out a campaign against the endocrine-disrupting chemicals. 

The Role of TNCs

Meanwhile, the transnational agro-chemical companies were using new
strategies to promote pesticides and chemicals in rural areas. 
These included "environment-friendly" labels and logos, massive
advertisements on TV and radio, sponsoring of cultural and school
programmes in rural areas, etc.  This was misleading farmers and
farm workers, the participants observed.  Commenting on the role of
TNCs, Dr. Romy Quijano, President of PAN Philippines stated,
"Science is being defined by corporate bodies, and governments are
being misled.  What we are seeing is a push for economic regimes
where trade is more important than people's lives.  The
Precautionary Principle, that was introduced at the Earth Summit in
1992, essentially states that where an activity raises threats of
harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures
should be taken even if certain cause and effect relationships are
not established scientifically.  But the governments, who are
signatories, are ignoring it.  So companies are claiming that their
products are safe, and yet again the burden of proof to show harm
is on the victim". 

Farida Akhter, of UBINIG Policy Research for Development
Alternative) in Bangladesh, was also critical of the way
governments were giving support for pesticide use.  "Micro-credit,
which is supposed to be the miracle solution to farmers problems,
is being used by NGOs to promote hybrid seeds, which in turn
require the use of pesticides and fertilizers."  Due to this, there
were many alternative initiatives from farmers to save seeds and
farm in more sustainable ways - for example, the Naryakrishi
Andolan movement for healthier lives and communities. 

Coming Together to Resist the Onslaught

But by collaborating across countries and organizations women were
confronting the major sources of the problem - a combination of
corporate irresponsibility in the marketing and promotion of
pesticides, nonexistent or poorly enforced laws, and an
inaccessible or unresponsive health care system. 

A major focus of the Workshop was in strategizing and planning
actions around which participating groups could work together. 
"Information and awareness building is a major strategy, "
explained Sarojeni V. Rengam. "There is a need to get as much
information as possible out on the ways pesticides impact people,
particularly women.  Groups are also keen to undertake regular
monitoring and documentation of pesticides use in the plantations
and in rural communities", as a way towards people's mobilisation,
build leadership in communities and so forth. 

Campaigning and advocacy efforts will also feature, as would
documentation of traditional knowledge, promotion of indigenous
seeds, which are all linked to sustainable agriculture efforts.
Ultimately these alternative methods and strategies for pesticides
use reduction would led to pesticide-free agriculture. 


PAN Asia Pacific
P.O. Box 1170
10850 Penang
Malaysia
Tel.:   604-6570271
        604-6560381
Fax.:   604-6577445
http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap